Hal McRae (67) -Early in his career he played some third base. It would be interesting to construct an alternate history of the Big Red Machine based on McRae being able to stay at third. Would Rose have stayed on the OF, and if so, would Foster or Griffey have gotten a chance? We'll never know...

Dain Clay -A typical Bill McKechnie outfielder; a .250 hitter who played good defense. His listed nicknames are "Sniffy" and "Ding-A-Ling", which seems a bit harsh...

Bob Allen -Player-manger for the 1900 Reds... As a boy, he played sandlot baseball with future president Warren G. Harding.

Others:

Buddy Groom (47) -Pitched 14 years in the bigs and stayed pretty much under the radar...His real first name is "Wedsel", which might explain him preferring "Buddy"...He holds the record for most games played (786) without a plate appearance.

Andre Dawson (58) -"The Hawk" held the record for most games played without a World Series appearance until Rafael Palmiero passed him.. He currently works for the Marlins and is into deep sea fishing.

Bob Bailor (61) -Bob came up through the Oriole organization as an infielder when they already had Brooks Robinson, Mark Belanger, Davey Johnson and Bobby Grich..He was liberated by being Toronto's first pick in the expansion draft.

Bobby Lowe -The first player to hit four homers in a game (and all four off the same pitcher)...He was also hot stuff in a number of other ways. He once scored six runs in a game, and had a 37-game errorless streak at 2B; no small feat in the days before modern gloves. He started with the Boston Beaneaters of 1890, and hung around long enough to be a teammate of Ty Cobb when he broke in in 1907.

Bob Borkowski

07-10-2013, 09:47 PM

Reds:

Hal McRae (67) -Early in his career he played some third base. It would be interesting to construct an alternate history of the Big Red Machine based on McRae being able to stay at third. Would Rose have stayed on the OF, and if so, would Foster or Griffey have gotten a chance? We'll never know...

In the pre-1969 offseason, playing winter ball in Puerto Rico, McRae suffered a multiple leg fracture sliding on the basepaths. Bill James said in 'The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract', "Before the accident, McRae was a burner, a centerfielder who could fly...after the accident, his speed was major league average".